LEED® credits

In 2000, the US Green Building Council created the Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED®) program. This program awards points for the use of sustainable products or building practices in a whole building design process.

LEED® awards points to those building projects that comply with sustainability standards. Architects, designers and building owners can plan a project in order to acquire points in the program to achieve a level of certification for the building project. There are many LEED® programs for different types of building projects. The flagship program, LEED®-NC (New Construction), awards points within the following major categories for a project:

Sustainable Sites

Water efficiency

Energy/Atmosphere

Materials/Resources

Indoor environmental quality

Innovation/Design process.

Many federal, state and local governments are now requiring that the construction of public buildings be associated with some minimum level of LEED® certification.

A cool metal roof on a building project can directly or indirectly contribute up to 24 points in the LEED® program.

When a building is renovated for reuse, an existing cool metal roof can contribute to the following points:

MR Credit 1.1 Building Reuse

MR Credit 1.2 Building Reuse

The fact that metal is fully recyclable contributes to the following points:

MR Credit 2.1 Construction Waste Management

MR Credit 2.2 Construction Waste Management

The recyclability of metal also helps with Materials Use credits and contributes to the following points:

MR Credit 3.1 Materials Reuse

MR Credit 3.2 Materials Reuse

Metals well documented high recycled content can contribute points as follows:

MR Credit 4.1 Recycled Content

MR Credit 4.2 Recycled Content

The use of a cool metal roof can contribute to points in the Energy Optimization credit in the category of Energy and Atmosphere as follows:

EA Credit 1 Optimize Energy Performance

The nature of metal roofing can be used to an advantage in capturing rainwater for non-potable water use in a building and can contribute to these points: